Awake
by Inea Sako
Summary: Mako woke Raleigh twice without meaning to. And then one time, he woke her.
1. Chapter 1

"Raleigh."

Small, cold fingers prodded at his shoulder.

"Raleigh."

He shifted, grumbling at the unwanted interruption. But the the fingers continued to poke at him, forcing awareness to gradually filter into his sleeping mind.

"...Mako? What is it?"

"I want to show you something."

"Now?" he replied groggily.

Silence answered him.

Raleigh groaned as he rolled out of the infirmary bed, his bumps and bruises reminding him of their existence as he haphazardly pulled on proper clothing and shuffled off after Mako. She was waiting for him in the darkened corridor, helpfully lighting his way with an emergency flashlight. It was proof of how tired he was that he didn't understand the need for the flashlight until they were fifty meters down the corridor.

"Power's out?"

Mako nodded, her eyes shining with suppressed glee as she led him to the nearest balcony.

Outside, where the lights of Hong Kong would ordinarily be lighting the sky, there was instead the gleam of thousands of stars, blazing brightly into the night. Mako sighed at the sight, her hands tightening on her deactivated flashlight as she stared into the black, a wistful smile sneaking onto her face.

"They are beautiful, aren't they?"

Raleigh followed her gaze upwards, his gut clenching in remembrance of all those times it had been him and Yancy standing like this, staring at the heavens. Still, Mako's excitement was infectious, and he found himself smiling despite his grief.

"Yeah, they are."

Within a few minutes, Hong Kong switched back on and blotted out the stars with its refracted light. Mako sighed again, disappointment darkening her features as she turned to go back inside.

"I know a place," Raleigh called after her, trying to do something, _anything_, to remove that look from her features, "In Anchorage. Yancy and I used to go stargazing there every couple of weeks. I can take you there sometime."

His words weren't much, but they managed to give her back her smile, and he was suddenly struck with how much it changed her features.

"Thank you. I would like that."


	2. Chapter 2

_She failed._

_Tokyo was in flames, thousands lying dead, bloody, or broken in the streets, the bodies strewn between shredded pieces of the Wall of Life. Raleigh was laying so still on the pavement, the light gone from behind his eyes..._

_Because she failed._

* * *

Raleigh bolted awake, halfway out of his bed before he even managed to gain a sense of the nightmare. Something about people dying, and failure, and Tokyo?

He fought through the sickening grief that clouded his mind, reaching desperately for any possible explanation. Why was he dreaming of Tokyo on fire? It wasn't even as if he...

Mako.

He wasn't conscious of moving, only of Mako's fear and grief. Her emotions fogged his senses, leeching into his mind through a non-existent Drift, causing him to stagger slightly as he sprinted down the hallway. Rounding a corner and smacking into some delicate ridiculousness of a decorative vase, Raleigh cursed the individual who thought it would be a good idea to put them so far apart from each other in the hotel. Clearly, no one on this ridiculous "Victory Tour" had thought to tell them about their stupidity. He slammed into the door separating them, heedless of the noise, and rushed in, arriving by the bed just in time to catch Mako's frantically flailing hands as she struck out against her demons.

"Mako!"

Trapped in her nightmare, she could not hear him.

"MAKO!"

She finally met his gaze, her eyes wide and staring as her brain transitioned between fabrication and reality. Raleigh knew that look all too well. But it still chilled him to see it reflected back through Mako's eyes.

Careful of her fear-rigid muscles, he gathered her close, settling himself beside her in the bed, and tried as best as he could to pull her out of whatever horrors her mind had created. As he sat there, a memory of Yancy crossed, unbidden, into his mind.

"_One day, kid, you're going to find someone you actually are about. I hope I'm there to see it, because it'll be hilarious to see you knocked on your ass."_

As Mako gradually relaxed in his embrace, Raleigh finally found himself answering his brother's statement.

"As usual, Yance, you were right."

You're always right.


	3. Chapter 3

It was the silence that woke him. Normally his apartment had the typical sounds of a building, with creaks and pops at odd hours, but even those had fallen silent under the oppressive stillness.

The silence of snow.

Without thinking, Raleigh threw himself into his clothing, ignoring the memories that pushed at him. Memories of him and Yancy, roughhousing in their icy front yard. Their sister, slipping and sliding down a frosty white hill. An old man, asking if he needed help...

He shoved the coat on with a little more force than strictly necessary, intent on reminding his brain that he didn't need his sad memories right that moment. He had something more important to do.

Raleigh knew things had been hard for Mako. Their trip from Hong Kong to Anchorage had seen Mako retreat farther and farther into herself, her grief still too near to cope with. The Marshal's funeral had only made things worse. But this time... This time things were going to change.

He stomped his way up the icy steps to Mako's door, and slammed his fist against the solid wooden surface in an effort to wake her.

"Mako? Mako, get up. I want to show you something."

It took a few moments before he heard the telltale creak of floorboards and heard the slide of the bolt before the door swan open to reveal his copilot, hastily dressed in a bathrobe.

"Raleigh? It is 3 am. What are you doing here?"

"Come on Mako. There's something I want to show you."

Her answering smile was tired, if a little exasperated.

"I've seen snow before."

"I'm not showing you snow." He grinned at her, "Come on."

After she put on clothing more suited for the cold, he gestured for her to follow him. The walk wasn't particularly long, but in the cold and the dark, it seemed to drag on forever. Finally, he stopped her at the peak of the small hill, its snowy surface unmarred by any footprints other than theirs. As she stood there with him, trying to catch her breath, he pointed upwards at the undimmed stars above.

"Yancy and I would come here sometimes, after a drop." He looked at her, but she merely nodded for him to continue, "Yancy liked the silence, and the stars, and I guess I just got used to it, coming out here after everything that would happen."

He chuckled ruefully, resettling his jacket around him in an attempt to gain more warmth.

"Funny how feeling insignificant reminds you that you're alive."

Out of the corner of his eye, Raleigh saw Mako raise her face to the sky, her brown eyes taking in the expanse of stars above them. Eventually silent tears began drifting down her cheeks. Unsure of what to stay, he merely turned his own gaze to the stars, getting lost in his own memories as the cold seeped into his bones.

If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine Yancy there again, standing in between him and Mako, with his face upturned towards to the sky...

"Thank you."

Raleigh blinked, startled from his thoughts by Mako's unexpected statement.

"Not a problem," he said, smiling at her.

Seeing her return his smile, he relaxed again, satisfied that his work was done. Smiles were infinitely better than nightmares and sleepless nights and-

Raleigh stiffened in shock at the sudden sensation of cold on the back of his neck. He spun around, his eyes widening at the sight of Mako with a double handful of snow and the slightest hint of a mischievous grin. Before he could react, she threw the rest of her icy ammunition directly at his face and bolted down the hill, her delighted laughter echoing in the morning air.

Shocked into immobility, Raleigh found himself unexpectedly reveling in a sound he had never heard from Mako before. Lost in thought, he found himself pelted in the face again by unerringly aimed snowballs, and sudden happiness or not, there was no way he would just let her get away with this. Grinning, he scooped up his retaliation, and barreled down the hill after her.


End file.
